Tourists around the world travelling to Skardu nowadays. According to last year’s report, more than 12 million tourists visited Gilgit Baltistan including both international and domestic travellers. Out of 12 million, 4.5 million visited Skardu Baltistan. Which opens a lot of opportunities to locals in terms of financial stability. The drawback of such a huge number of tourists visiting the region suddenly looks irreversible. Solid waste disposal at Deosai plain is like a legal affair and every tourist is taking their part to damage the nature.
The major challenge throughout Gilgit Baltistan is the lack of infrastructure to accommodate millions of tourists.
There’s no established system to dispose of solid waste in the region, especially in Skardu. Deosai plains have more than half of the area covered with plastic waste. Roughly, 4 million tourists visited Deosai last year which approximately produced 40 tons of plastic waste. These plastic waste are even not decomposable. It means, the waste will going to pile up each year.
In the same scenario, Deosai will be a different place after a couple of years. Nature is in danger. The tourism industry of Gilgit Baltistan is in danger. A huge amount of plastic waste will rise the temperature as well killing the flora and fauna. The only way out of it is to be proactive.
The responsible authorities should work to sow long-term sustainable tourism in the region. To date, everyone is in the race to gain money which is a short-term goal.
